</z<r 



#l> /? 



3" 



?Q $ 



s 



WHEN THE FORESTS ARE EXHAUSTED. 




-\^*2 



CHicaco thibuhc. 



^R E E. N EXHA E USTE.D S ANDTtiERlVERS HAVE RUN DRV, 



FUTURE VIEW OF THE EDES BRIDGE AT ST. LOUIS 

with the disappearance of the forests will come the drying up of our rivers 

and the sterilizing of our soil. — Chicago Tribune. 



TO PRESERVE THE NATION'S 
HER ITAGE. 

VITAL IMPORTANCE OF THE APPALACHIAN 
FOREST PROJECT. 



Scientific Testimony Agrees that the Prosperity of the Eastern 
States and the Welfare of the Whole Nation Demands 
Speedy Action by Congress and Cooperation by the 
Various States. — The Timber Supply ; the Water Power ; 
the Maintenance of Navigation ; the Saving of Health and 
Pleasure Resorts, and the Continued Existence of Many 
Cities Depends Upon it. — The Fate of Former Empires is 
our Warning. 

WHAT THE CIVIC ASSOCIATION MOST DO 



American Civic Association 
Department of Parks and Public Reserv, 
vice-president 
Henry A. Barker, Providence 



APR - 







American Civic Association 

"3far a feter attd iHorr Irattttful Ammra" 



Office of the Secretary, North American Building, Philadelphia 



President 

J. HORACE McFARLAND, Harrisburg, Pa. 

First Vice=President and Secretary 

CLINTON ROGERS WOODRUFF, Philadelphia 

General Vice-Presidents 

GEORGE B. LEIGHTON, Monadnock, N. H. 
ROBERT WATCHORN, New York 
L. E. HOLDEN, Cleveland 
FIELDING J. STILSON, Los Angeles 

Treasurer 

WILLIAM B. HOWLAND, New York 

Department Vice-Presidents 

Press 



RECEIVED 

[k MAY 20 1910 



Arts and Crafts 

MRS. M. F. JOHNSTON, Richmond, Ind. 
Children's Gardens 

MISS MARY MARSHALL BUTLER, 

Yonkers, N. Y. 

City Making 

FREDERICK L. FORD, Hartford, Conn. 
Factory Betterment 

MRS. GEORGE F. FRENCH, Portland, Me. 
Libraries 

MISS MARY E. AHERN, Chicago 
Outdoor Art 

WARREN H. MANNING, Boston 

Parks and Public Reservations 

HENRY A. BAKER, Providence 



R. B. WATROUS. Milwaukee 
Public Nuisances 

HARLAN P. KELSEY, Salem, Mass. 
Public Recreation 

CHARLES W. GARFIELD, 

Grand Rapids, Mich. 

Railroad Improvement 

MRS. A. E. McCREA, Chicago 
Rural Improvements 

D. WARD KING, Maitland, Mo. 

School Extension 

O. J. KERN, Rockford, 111. 
Social Settlements 

GRAHAM ROMEYN TAYLOR, Chicago 



Women's Outdoor Art League 

MRS. AGNES McGIFFERT POUND Ashtabula, Ohio. 

Board of Councillors 

ROBERT C. OGDEN, Chairman, New York. 

Business Committee 

J. HORACE McFARLAND, CLINTON ROGERS WOODRUFF, 

WILLIAM B. HOWLAND, HENRY A. BARKER, 

FREDERICK L. FORD. 



This Department Pamphlet issued for the Association by 

HENRY A. BARKER, Dept. Vice-President 

Chairman Special Committee on Appalachian Campaign. 

32 Custom House Street, Providence. 

February, 1908 

By transfer 



'Ul 2 1915 



THE DESTINIES OF MANY STATES 



HPHE AMERICAN CIVIC ASSOCIATION, believing that 
most of its efforts toward the making of a Better and 
More Beautiful America, must of necessity be frustrated, at 
least so far as the Eastern half of the country is concerned, 
unless a Great Devastating Influence is checked, again submits a 
few of the more important considerations which affect in an 
amazing degree the destinies of nine or ten Southern States, 
several Central States, and five Northern ones, and in a very 
substantial way, menace the prosperity of the whole country. 
A bill now before Congress (February, 1908) calls for the 
establishment of two National Forest Areas, and a preliminary 
appropriation of Five Million Dollars to be expended among 
the mountains of the South and of New England to check 
a loss that already amounts to hundreds of millions a year. The 
need of immediate action is pressing. Unless it is speedily 
taken, the destruction of the mountain-side forests will bring 
disasters complete and overwhelming. 



PRESERVATION OF RIVERS. 

Practically all of the great rivers south 
of the Ohio and east of the Mississippi 
rise in a limited area among the high 
peaks of the Appalachians. In New Eng- 
land, the Connecticut, the Merrimac, the 
Saco and the Androscoggin rise in the 
White Mountains. The forest cover at 
the headwaters is a vital necessity to 
regulate these streams, and 
Once Destroyed, the Steeper Slopes never 
can be Reforested. 

While the droughts have been grow- 
ing more severe with the extension 
of the destructive cuttings, the freshets 
have been increasing in violence, and a 
single flood frequently does damage far 
greater in cost than the entire expense 
of providing both reservations. 

A FUTURE DESERT. 

Unquestionably, absolute desolation 
throughout great areas will be the ul- 
timate result if the process of "land 
skinning" is allowed to continue. This 



begins with the unregulated axe; then 
comes the forest fire; then the unre- 
strained rush of the floods and the wash- 
ing away of the soil from steep mountain 
sides to overwhelm and to drown out the 
fertile valleys. The navigable streams 
are clogged; the water power is ruined; 
the storage reservoirs are filled with 
mud; the harbors are choked with debris. 
It does not take vast geologic ages to 
accomplish utter ruin. It will be but a 
brief span of human history before irre- 
parable damage is wrought unless the 
government responds to the call for 
relief. A process has been set in motion 
which, unless checked in time, all the 
strength of the nation will be powerless 
to resist. 

DESOLATING THE LAND. 

Professor Shaler told us nearly a dozen 
years ago that every year a hundred 
square miles of Eastern country was 
being rendered hopelessly desolate 
through man's lamentable carelessness. 
The process is going on three times as 
rapidly nowadays. Within a few years 
an area nearly equal to that of the State 
of Massachusetts has been destroyed. 
Man's puny strength and destructive 
genius could not accomplish all this deso- 



DELAY BY THE GOVERNMENT MEANS DAMAGE UNSPEAKABLE 



*M\ 



BY PENNY WISE — POUND FOOLISH POLICY, 



lation unassisted. But it is only needed 
for him to make a beginning upon the 
steeper slopes of the Appalachians. Na- 
ture says to the man with the axe, "You 
kill the forest and we do the rest." 

DESTRUCTION OF EMPIRES. 

It is thus that annihilation has come 
upon some of the greatest empires and 
richest domains that the world has ever 
seen. 

Once upon a time, before the mountain 
forests of Lebanon were destroyed, Pales- 
tine supported in much affluence a popu- 
lation of 10,000,000. The mountains have 
long been denuded. Forbidding slopes, 
barren and ugly, rear their weird forms 
sharply above dismal and desolate val- 
leys. Scarcely 400,000 people remain in 
all the region, and most of these are in 
hopeless and abject poverty. The valley 
of Babylon, where once stood the me- 
tropolis of the world, is abandoned and 
forlorn. Desert wastes cover the sites of 
Carthage and Tyre and Sidon, yet bounti- 
ful nature once provided for these places 
its richest gifts of fertility and abund- 
ance. Antioch is gone, and all Syria is a 
scene of irreparable ruin. "The destruc- 
tion of her forests, followed by the dis- 
appearance of her soil and the decay of 
her industries," foreshadowed the in- 
evitable' result. "Man destroyed the for- 
ests, and lands which once flowed with 
milk and honey were transformed into 
deserts." One-third of China, it is said, 
has been rendered uninhabitable, and the 
ruined hills of Southern Italy will no 
longer support their population. Is such 
a mournful history of so-called civiliza- 
tion — that is really but a record of de- 
vastation and destruction — to be repeated 
in America? 

LITTLE DISASTERS EXCITE US. 

Unlike a war or an earthquake or a 
pestilence, this forest destruction will 
bring ruin not to be measured by one 
decade, or by a single century. 

We shudder at the horrors of war; the 
whole nation is thrilled to the utmost by 
the story of a great earthquake; a quick 
response goes out to aid the stricken city 
when San Francisco is swept by fire. Yet 
San Francisco, like Chicago and like Bos- 
ton, within a shorter time than it takes 
to awaken Congress to the vastly greater 
calamity that is impending, arises from 
her ashes finer and stronger than ever 
before. If that great conflagration could 
have been foreseen and prevented, would 
any so-called "economy" have stood for 
one -moment in the way? 

How quickly our patriotic people would 
rush to the nation's aid, and what mil- 
lions would be lavished upon the nation's 
defense if a hostile army were crossing 
our frontier. A Congress that refused to 
act because it couldn't find anything to 
fit the case in the Constitution, or be- 
cause it was trying for an "economical 
administration," would be buried in ridi- 
cule and disgrace. 

MUCH WORSE THAN WAR. 

Yet the devastation of war is but 
for a brief time, after all. There 
have been broad strips of smiling country 
laid waste by the invader even in our 
own land, and ruin for the time being 
seemed complete, yet another generation 
comes upon the scene and those of us 
who belong to it look in vain for the 
scars that were inflicted. 



It is different when national resources 
instead of artificial creations have been 
destroyed, and this destruction of the for- 
est and the mountainside, the valleys and 
the rivers, means ruin of states instead 
of counties; ruin that will last a thousand 
years instead of a generation; ruin that 
will be complete and overwhelming; a 
calamity brought on by human ignorance 
and greed. It is a ruin clearly foreseen 
by those who have the knowledge to fore- 
see; clearly preventable by human means, 
if we have the will to prevent. It is 
probably within the truth to say that a 
city like San Francisco might be de- 
stroyed every three or four months with- 
out bringing greater loss of the national 
wealth than is now going on all the time. 

"ALREADY. FEEL THE PINCH." 

It may take several centuries to com- 
plete this disaster, and there will still 
be some oases, but we who are now liv- 
ing may not hope to escape some portion 
of the penalty that indifference brings. 
Already, as the Forest Service tells us, 
"we are beginning to feel the pinch." 

THE TIMBER FAMINE. 

We are rapidly nearing a timber 
famine and the end of the nation's supply 
of hardwood is already in sight. The 
principal remaining stock is growing 
among the highlands of the Appalachians, 
and when it is gone many of the na- 
tion's greatest industries will be obliter- 
ated. 

FAILURE OF NAVIGATION. 

We shall see the failure of navigation 
upon scores of rivers that are now very 
useful for transportation, and this will be 
accomplished by the freshets of spring- 
time; by the droughts of midsummer, and 
by the filling up of the channels with 
siit and debris from the denuded hills. 

As Ex-Governor Pardee of California 
has said, "The rivers and harbors begin 
in the mountains." The navigable rivers 
of the South practically all have their 
rise in the Appalachians, and the four 
principal rivers that rise in the White 
Mountains are navigable in their lower 
reaches, yet the removal of the forests 
has so disturbed the laws of Nature that 
serious difficulty is being experienced by 
the season of low water, which is con- 
stantly lengthening. 

NO USE TO DIG OUT. 

"The government has expended $30,- 
000,000 to deepen these streams, and ex- 
pects to spend $26,000,000 more, but that 
investment will be rendered useless in a 
few years unless something is done to 
regulate the drainage." The forest is the 
one natural factor that equalizes the flow 
and with the forest supplemented by 
storage reservoir systems, the depth of 
many streams could be properly main- 
tained. "Thirty-five per cent, of the 
Monongahela may be economically stored. 
That would almost eliminate flood dam- 
age at Pittsburg and Wheeling and se- 
cure the coveted height of water to Cin- 
cinnati." This is impossible of accom- 
plishment except by the maintenance of 
the watershed forests to equalize the flow 
and prevent the filling of both reservoirs 
and rivers with soil waste from the hill- 
sides. 

MULTIPLIED MILLIONS WASTED. 

Instead of spending "multiplied mil- 
lions" to dig out the rivers and the har- 
bors, would it not be better policy for an 
"economical Congress" to attack the root 



NATIONAL RESOURCES ARE BEING SWEPT AWAY 



OVERWHELMING DISASTERS BECOME CERTAIN 



of the difficulty, and remove the chief 
cause of trouble? 

"The present process involves dredg- 
ing, and more dredging, until Kingdom 
Come," testifies Mr. Leighton of the U. S. 
Geological Survey. "It is cheaper to 
keep soil out of the top than to dig it 
out of the bottom, and a private cor- 
poration that handled such a situation in 
the manner that the government does, 
would be a fit candidate for a receiver- 
ship." 

FLOOD DISASTERS TO CITIES. 

The floods of 1907, which caused a dam- 
age of $9,900,000 at Pittsburg and Cin- 
cinnati and Louisville, were but a hint of 
future disasters to many cities. These 
freshets are forever menacing all the 
riverside towns along the Ohio and Mis- 
sissippi, as well as those on the rivers 
within the Appalachian region, and if the 
menace continues to increase, it will 
scarcely be possible to maintain cities 
except on the hilltops. Already the flood 
damage in the United States exceeds 
$100,000,000 per year. "With our water 
controlled and utilized, this sum might 
be saved, and four-fold greater value pro- 
duced." 

MANUFACTURES THREATENED. 

Prof. Shaler once remarked "that the 
future of manufactures in our country 
will depend upon water power trans- 
mitted by electricity." Nearly every drop 
of water that can turn a wheel in the 
South comes from the mountains. Upon 
the principal streams of the Southern Ap- 
palachian Region, there is nearly 5,000,000 
horse power for development. If one 
horse power is worth $20 per year, which 
is the commonly estimated rate, it will be 
seen what a mighty factor are the moun- 
tain brooks for the future industrial de- 
velopment of this country in furnishing the 
possibility for vast development in manu- 
facturing, in lighting and in transporta- 
tion. It is estimated that the capital in- 
vested in the manufacturing enterprises 
which utilize about two-thirds of the 
power of the four principal rivers flowing 
from the White Mountains amounts to 
$400,000,000. The industries dependent 
upon the power of these rivers in five 
New England states and nine or ten 
Southern ones certainly produce an an- 
nual output of nearly or quite half a bil- 
lion dollars, but the floods of springtime 
and the ever- increasing severity of the 
midsummer droughts offer a constant 
menace to their prosperity, and instead of 
the vast future development that would 
otherwise be looked for, it is feared 
that decay will set in and that 
the diminished streams of summer will 
barely trickle past a few abandoned 
wheels that have managed to escape the 
springtime freshets. 

WITHOUT FORESTS STORAGE RES- 
ERVOIRS ARE FUTILE. 
The building of Storage Reservoirs to 
take the place of the natural storage of 
the forest will be quite futile. As Secre- 
tary Wilson's report sets forth, "Any 
reservoir system in the Southern Appa- 
lachians is foredoomed to failure unless 
the watersheds which feed it are kept 
under forest." Examples of reservoirs 
completely filled are on almost every 
stream. If the silt can be "sluiced" out 

* See map of Southern Appalachian Region, 



of the highest reservoir it gathers in the 
next below, and if perchance it passes the 
last reservoir, it is free for deposit in the 
navigable reaches of the streams, whence 
its removal may only be by a steam 
dredge at the expense of the government. 
Yet if these storage reservoirs could be 
maintained, not only manufactures, but 
inland navigation, would be possible on 
thousands of miles of rivers. 

HARBORS AffD SOIL WASTE. 

Vast sums are spent each year in rais- 
ing the levees and digging out the chan- 
nels of the Mississippi and its tributaries, 
and upon the harbors of the Gulf and 
Ocean Coast. We are told that a billion 
tons of the most fertile top soil of the 
land goes off each year into the sea, and 
that it is worth a billion dollars. That is 
as much as it costs each year to run the 
government of the United States. It is 
said to be twice the value of all the lum- 
ber products of the country, and surely 
is a tremendous lot more than the lum- 
ber products will be worth if present 
conditions continue. 

HIGHER RENTS FOR EVERYBODY. 

The waste of the forest has not only 
raised the p'rice of lumber, but by in- 
creasing the demand for substitutes, has 
brought about a general raising of the 
price of other building materials from 25 
to 75 per cent, within six or seven years, 
and that means that a burdensome tax 
is already being levied upon every prop- 
erty owner and rent payer in the United 
States. 

ABANDONMENT OF FARMS. 

Throughout both sections, thousands of 
acres of once cleared land have been 
abandoned, and a smaller area is now 
farmed than fifty years ago. In the South 
the farms move higher and higher up 
the mountainsides, with only a brief ex- 
istence between the beginning and the 
end of their usefulness, from the first 
cutting of the forest to the hopeless ero- 
sion and final abandonment of the land. 
In the White Mountain Region, the farm- 
er has abandoned the country almost en- 
tirely, except along the meadow lands 
that border the streams, and, as in the 
Southern section, vast areas of the coun- 
try is much better adapted for the rais- 
ing of trees than for agriculture.* 

SCENERY A COMMERCIAL ASSET. 

Considered commercially, as a public 
asset from the tourist's viewpoint alone, 
the White Mountains are estimated to be 
worth $S, 000,000 a year. This ' money 
value, which imperfectly measures the 
real value to the people who spend the 
money, is four times as much as the 
cost of the proposed Northern reserva- 
tion. 

Crawford Notch, and the Profile, and 
Tuckerman's Ravine are world famous. 
A very large proportion of the population 
of the United States, especially that part 
living in the greatest cities, is within a few 
hours' ride of these once splendid scenes 
that are now rapidly being made hideous. 
The region is well supplied with fine 
hotels and admirable roads, and multi- 
tudes of campers and cottagers annually 
flock to the invigorating White Hills. 
Asheville, the largest town in Western 
page io 



IT IS FULL TIME FOR THE GOVERNMENT TO WAKE UP 



NATIONAL RUIN WILL FOLLOW INDIFFERENCE 



North Carolina, owes its prosperity to 
the thousands of tourists who go for rec- 
reation, and to the thousands of invalids 
who are seeking health in the pure air of 
the beautiful "Sapphire Country." But 
with the destruction of the scenery, the 
mountain hotels must close their doors 
and summer homes must be abandoned. 

Hundreds of thousands of people in 
all succeeding ages should be able to find 
vigor and inspiration among these mag- 
nificent mountains, awd we of this gen- 
eration must consider ourselves custo- 
dians of a great and God-given legacy 
for millions yet unborn. 

THE PARTING OF THE WAYS. 
"We have at last reached the forks of 
the road," declares President Roosevelt, 
"and the whole future of the nation is di- 
rectly at stake in the momentous deci- 
sion which is now forced upon us." 

WESTWARD THE STAR OP EMPIRE. 

The East is making a desert of its 
gardens, but the West is making gardens 
of its deserts. The wiser policy in the 
states beyond the Mississippi has caused 
the setting aside of nearly 235,000 square 
miles of forest-covered mountains, and in 
these same states has undertaken recla- 
mation work by irrigation that is costing 
the government more than $40,000,000 to 
supplement private work, upon which 
$100,000,000 has already been expended. 

It is easy to see that the centre of 
population may be shifted a thousand 
miles or more toward the setting sun. Yet 
the West would hardly profit by the de- 
struction of the East any more than the 
East today would be benefited if the 
Western States were to be wiped off the 
map. Nor is it quite a "square deal" 
that such absurd economy be practiced in 
the richest and most populous section of 
our country, for, while the Western 
States and Territories, with a population 
of 10,447,368 have nearly a quarter of a 
million square miles of national forests, 
the rest of the States with a population of 
73,494,112, have none. 

The states of the Northeast and the 
Southeast together are now asking for 
government control over 7800 square 
miles to avert grave calamities. Is this 
unreasonable? Is it unreasonable for 
seven-eighths of the population to ask for 
an area one-thirtieth as great as the 
other one-eighth of the people enjoy? 

A NOTABLE REPORT. 

The Report of the Secretary of Agricul- 
ture made to Congress under date of De- 
cember 11, 1907, copies of which may be 
obtained by application made to the For- 
est Service, sets forth very clearly and 
very definitely the policy that must be 



pursued. It contains suggestions of the 
ways in which the states and the nation 
must take up the mighty problem, that is 
vital to the public welfare. It affords food 
for thought for every citizen who cares 
either for his own interest or for the con- 
tinued welfare of his country, and deals 
with a subject of vital importance, com- 
pared with which all the other discus- 
sions and enterprises of the government 
seem trivial and commonplace. 

NOT FOR ORNAMENT, BUT PRESER- 
VATION. 

The idea that this National Forest 
movement is merely a "Scheme for In- 
vestment in National Scenery" is one of 
the most pernicious bits of misinforma- 
tion that ever flitted through Congress. 
The forests must be administered for 
their fullest and most practical uses. The 
proposition is merely for preserving the 
land in which we live against the ruin 
and depredation that is surely coming 
otherwise. 

THE GOVERNMENT IS NOW ON 
TRIAD. 

What possible reason can there be for 
any delay? Immediate relief is called 
for. The waste and the drain upon re- 
sources, the damage constantly going on, 
amounts to millions of dollars a day. 
Does Congress fail to understand the ne- 
cessity? It is impossible to believe that 
our legislators are so uninformed and in- 
different to the nation's welfare. 

Is there any question about the facts? 
None has been suggested. 

Does anyone disapprove of these East- 
ern Forests? If so, why is he not heard 
from? 

WHY THIS DELAY? 

Is there any serious objection to this 
particular bill? If so, why is not a sub- 
stitute suggested? "No nation can out- 
live its natural resources," and since this 
is so, their preservation is an issue of 
greater magnitude than any that deals 
with man-made things like the Tariff, 
the Rate Bill, or even the Constitution it- 
self. If the government can neglect a 
grave responsibility like the considera- 
tion of this vital question upon which 
its very existence depends, it must fall 
or be brushed aside by an overwhelming 
wave of enlightened public opinion. The 
powers that be are now on trial. The 
handling of this forest question will fur- 
nish proof whether they are fit to govern. 
If they prove their unfitness, there will 
come a new alignment of parties upon 
new issues, and every intelligent person 
must desert the playing of peanut poli- 
tics for the real work of national preser- 
vation and development. In this work, 
intelligent and patriotic people of the 
North and the South will be solidly 
united. The call to arms is not the only 
one that demands a patriotic duty for 
the saving of his country, his home and 
his livelihood. H. A. B. 



WHAT MUST BE DONE. 
Every friend of the forest must come to the front. Every member of this asso- 
ciation is urged to write without delay to his representatives in Congress. Every 
society of thoughtful men and women with which you are connected should take action 
and send resolutions and telegrams to Washington. We ask you to interest the news- 
papers of your district, and we will furnish them whatever facts are desired for news 
matter and editorials, 

THERE IS NO TIME TO DELAY. 



EVERY AMERICAN VITALLY DEPENDENT ON FOREST SALVATION 







THE 




RUltfS OF MEMPHIS 



WITHOUT NATIONAL FORESTS 



EASTERN FORESTS THE 





Hardwood Supply Rapidly Dis- 
appearing from the Continent 



DISASTER THREATENS NATION 



U. S. Forest Service Asserts in Striking Bul- 
letin that Vast Industries will be Wiped 
Out Unless Congress Acts— Timber Famine 
Certain Unless Government Controls the 
Appalachians 



like 



the 



Often during the campaign for National 
Forests in the White Mountains and 
Southern Appalachians, questions 
these have been asked: 

"Why is this a National affair?" 

"What interest has the rest of 
country in these mountain reservations 
in the East?" 

"Why don't the states themselves at- 
tend to their own local affairs instead of 
putting them all up to the indulgent gov- 
ernment?" 

"What reason has Ohio or Indiana to 
get up any great enthusiasm for saving 
trees in North Carolina?" 

It is generally answered that whatever 
works for the prosperity of one part of 



our common country promotes the general 
good. One definite illustration is that the 
price of every yard of cotton cloth sold in 
America is dependent on the maintenance 
of water power in the two great centres 
of cotton manufacture, and that the water 
power of the principal rivers of the North 
and of the South can only be provided by 
the maintenance of forests on the steep 
slopes of the Appalachian Range. This is 
but one of the numerous examples. 

AN ALARMING BULLETIN. 

The United States Forest Service has 
furnished convincing answers to such 
questions, however, in an interesting, but 
alarming, bulletin recently written by 
Wm. L. Hall of that Department and is- 
sued under the authority of the Secretary 
of Agriculture. This little pamphlet, en- 
titled "The Waning Hardwood Supply," 
sets forth that more than half of the 
country's remaining stock of hardwood 
exists within a comparatively limited area 
among the highlands of the East; that 
through unregulated and reckless destruc- 
tion it is rapidly disappearing, and that 
when it is gone, which at the present rate 
of cutting, will be within the next fifteen 
years, many of the country's greatest in- 
dustries will be practically wiped out. 
Particularly is this the case with many 
leading manufactures of the Central 
States, and among those enumerated by 
Mr. Hall are carriage and wagon build- 
ing, furniture and interior finishing, agri- 
cultural implements, cooperage and musi- 
cal instruments. Railroad building will 
suffer, for no satisfactory substitute for 
wooden ties has yet been found, though 
many have been suggested and tried. 

DESTRUCTION OF INDUSTRIES. 

When prohibitive prices or an entire 
lack of supply have compelled the giving 
up of the present material, it is evident 
that every citizen will pay an indirect but 
oppressive tax for the loss of one of the 
greatest of national assets. "How in- 
tensely the whole country would feel the 
loss," says the report, "can scarcely be 
realized. A general failure in crops may 
affect industrial conditions for a few 
years — a failure in the hardwood supply 
would be a blight upon our industries for 
more than a generation." 

"PAYING THE PIPER." 

Even with the wisest management and 



NATION, STATE, AND PEOPLE MUST COOPERATE 



ONLY ONE HOPE FOR HARDWOOD SUPPLY 



immediate action by the government "the 
inevitable conclusion is that there are 
lean years ahead in the use of hardwood 
timber. There is sure to be a gap be- 
tween the supply that exists and the 
supply that will have to be provided." 

In the discussion of how to reduce the 
injury to the minimum, full recognition is 
given to the substitutes that are being 
employed; for instance, the growing use 
of metal and concrete— yet prominent as 
these materials have become, they seem 
not to have reduced the use of hardwood, 
which has been demanded for new uses 
"much faster than it has been replaced 
for any of the older ones." 

BEGINNING OF THE END. 

The price has recently advanced from 
25 to 65 per cent., and the lumbermen are 
pushing their way into places formerly 
considered inaccessible or offering lumber 
of many kinds formerly considered unfit. 
Yet the output is rapidly declining with 
the exhaustion of the forests. "Oak, 
which in 1899 furnished over one-half the 
entire output of hardwood lumber, fell off 
36.5 per cent. Yellow poplar, which in 
1899 was second among hardwoods, fell 
off 37.9 per cent. Elm, the greatest stand- 
ard of slack cooperage, went down 50.8 
per cent. Although almost all possible 
new woods have been pressed into use, 
there has still been a shrinkage in the 
total output of 15.3 per cent. . . . The 
hardwood lumbermen are working up the 
remnants. The end is coming into sight." 

PENALTY IN CENTRAL STATES. 

The supply in Indiana and Ohio, the 
original centre of production, is practi- 
cally exhausted. Illinois and Michigan are 
rapidly losing theirs, and every one of the 
Lake States will show a very rapid de- 
cline from now on. The states of the 
Mississippi Valley have reached their 
maximum cut. 

The shortage of raw material has already 
brought some of the expected results. 
The decline in the woodworKing industries 
of Ohio between 1900 and 1905 was more 
than 57 per cent., and the rank of the 
industry fell from the fourth to the twen- 
tieth place. In Indiana, the timber-using 
industry fell from the third to the eighth 
place; the number of wage earners de- 
creased 42.6 per cent., and the wages paid 
decreased 36.6 per cent. 

In 1905 the 2482 furniture establish- 
ments in the United States, with a capital 
of $153,000,000 and an annual product 
valued at $170,000,000, reported the annual 
use of 580,000,000 feet of lumber, and 
without hardwood lumber they are help- 

The 5143 establishments for vehicle 
manufacture with a capital of $149,000,- 
000 and a yearly product of $155,000,000, 
are threatened with almost absolute an- 
nihilation. 

RENTS ARE RISING. 

The increasing price of hardwood has 



already increased the demand, and so pro- 
duced a shortage and raised the price of 
all other building materials except ce- 
ment. The increased cost of building in 
every part of the Union has brought con- 
sternation to the rent payer, as well as 
the property owner. 

Softwood, it is said, is even now being 
used more than three times as fast as it 
is growing, but there will always be some 
softwood, thanks to the national forests 
already set aside in the far Western 
States. Not so with the hardwoods, 
which do not grow in useful quantities in 
the West — and the government, though it 
has set aside 150,000,000 acres west of 
the Missouri River, has not yet recognized 
the claims of a single foot of hardwood 
country for preservation! 

THE ONLY WAY. 

There is only one way to relieve the 
situation. The government must with all 
possible speed acquire great areas in the 
Southern Appalachians and in the White 
Mountains of New England. The states 
must help and individual owners be taught 
better methods of treating their own 
holdings. Under scientific methods of 
control, the annual increase in for- 
est production, which now averages 
not over ten cubic feet of wood to 
the acre, would in time be increased as 
it has in the government forests of Prus- 
sia and Saxony, eight or nine hundred 
per cent., though that would take half a 
century at least. At 40 cubic feet per 
year, the Appalachian Forest is capable 
of producing just about the annual crop 
that is now being demanded, but most of 
the Appalachian forest has been so dam- 
aged that it would be some time before it 
could average anything like this amount. 
"The longer the delay in putting this for- 
est under control, the longer continued 
and more extreme will be the shortage." 

SITUATION MOST GRAVE. 

Figures ordinarily make dull reading, 
but the carefully compiled statistics of 
this notable pamphlet are worse than 
dull; they are absolutely depressing and 
alarming. 

And yet this paper* takes up but a sin- 
gle phase of the Eastern forest question. 
The failure of the hardwood supply is only 
an incident in the great work of destruc- 
tion that man, in the name of civiliza- 
tion, is fastening upon this unhappy con- 
tinent, but this is a definite disaster close 
at hand and affecting our own genera- 
tion, and so, perhaps, will be taken to 
heart more readily than some other 
phases that deal with the preservation of 
the continent itself through the ages to 
come. 

*"The Waning Hardwood Supply and 
the Appalachian Forests." U. S. Dept. of 
Agriculture, Forest Service, Circular 116. 
Issued Sept. 24, 1907. Written by Wm. 
L. Hall, Assistant Forester. "Approved: 
JAMES WILSON, 
Secretary of Agriculture." 



IS IT LEGAL TO SAVE THE NATION? 



18 there a fear that the Constitution does not expressly proTide the means of deliver- 
ance ? If the general welfare clause means anything, it must admit guarding the 
heritage of all the generations. It would be a pretty impotent Government that could 
find no legal means of saving itself from desolation and destruction. 



HOW NATIONAL SUICIDE MAY BE ACCOMPLISHED 




WILL HISTORY REPEAT ITSELF? 
This scene is not very different from the present aspect of Ancient Carthage, or of Babylon. 
Their permanent ruin was brought about by preventable processes that are being duplicated 
in our own land. 



WILL HISTORY HAVE 
A MERRY JEST? 



Public Indifference and Con- 
gressional Inertia Responsible 



FALSE ECONOMY SPELLS RUIN 

Nero Fiddled While Rome Burned— Amer- 
icans Quarrel About the Tariff and 
Higher Education While National Ke- 
rources Are Being Obliterated and Pros- 
perity Sapped at its Fountain Head 



Perhaps someone thinks this is a joke. 
If it is one, it is also a ghastly prophecy 
that will come true unless we find a cure 
for • national ignorance, indifference and 
neglect. A great calamity threatens vast 
areas of our fairest states — a calamity 
which will make some of them uninhabit- 
able and bring to others staggering bur- 
dens. We are blithesome and merry while 
this is going on — busy and active as ants 
in an ant hill, and marvellously interested 
over little affairs that have been magni- 
fied to look big, while the very life of 



the nation is being permanently sapped at 
the fountain head of national prosperity. 
Sometimes instead of being blithesome 
we take ourselves very seriously and fret 
and fume about the Tariff, and fuss over 
the "Higher Education," so that we have 
no time to bother with a tiresome subject 
like the obliteration of the land and re- 
sources of fifteen statee. 

NERO'S CARELESSNESS. ' 

Nero fiddled while Rome burned, and he 
has been much criticised for his careless- 
ness, but how much better are we behav- 
ing? We are pretty patriotic when we 
get sufficiently aroused, and quite ex- 
cited while the band wagon is going 
by. We would respond gaily to the 
call to arms if we knew that a 
foreign invader was crossing our fron- 
tier. With such unintelligent patriotism, 
many empires and rich domains of 
former years have faded from the 
map of the world and are now buried 
beneath the sands of the desert. It was 
thus that Babylon and Tyre, and Sidon 
and Antioch, have perished — that one- 
third of China has become uninhabitable. 

But that sort of thing takes time. Per- 
haps most of us will be gone before the 
country begins to pay its severest penalty 
for forest devastation. So why should we 
care for the future of our Eastern States? 
Let us eat, drink and be merry, for to- 
morrow we die, and when we die, hooray 
for the overwhelming Deluge and the 
Municipal Policy of the great Nero! 

COMPULSORY RACE SUICIDE. 

But stop! Just as a humanitarian meas- 
ure, we really ought to arrange for Com- 
pulsory Race Suicide, for since we allow 
the destruction of the Nation's Heritage 
(of which we are temporary custodians) 
to go on unchecked, there will be no way 
of feeding any future generations. We 
will not even allow one blade of grass to 
grow where the hayfield was before. 

"Why should we care for Posterity, 
anyhow?" asks Sir Boyle O' Roche. "What 
has Posterity ever done for us?" Well, 
what, indeed? 



FOR CONGRESS AND THE PEOPLE TO DECIDE 



THE VOICE OF THE PEOPLE IS WHAT CONGRESS IS LISTENING FOR 



NOT FOR NATIONAL, BRIC-A-BRAC. 
Some people tell us that the idea is 
quite extensively held in Washington that 
this plan for setting aside the White 
Mountains and the Southern. Appalachians 
is simply a scheme for government in- 
vestment in natural scenery. The idea 
is that we want to preserve the for- 
ests like ornamental bric-a-brac in a 
glass case, to be looked at rather than 
used. But others, who are scientific men, 
tell us why the Atlantic Coast line is sink- 
ing and why the springtime river freshets 
are yearly providing navigation in the 
lower streets of Louisville, and it is large- 
ly, it appears, because Congress must be 
economical. 

THE ROAD TO RUIN. 

If the Public continues indifferent and 
Congressional apathy results, why. then 
we are on the Road to Ruin. 

When the forests are exhausted and the 
rivers have run dry; when Pittsburg has 
become only a tradition and Atlantic City 
has sunk beneath the encroaching sea; 
when the barren, ghastly Appalachians 
rear their scarred and ruined sides piti- 
fully above the silent desert, shall History 
have it for a gruesome jest upon a nation 
that called itself "practical," that all 
this was allowed to come about in the 
name of Economy? 

Shall it tell of a nation that chuckled 
with glee and puffed with pride at its 
own enterprise in the looting of a rich 
continent in record-breaking time, a con- 
tinent the wealth of which was almost 
beyond the dreams of avarice — almost, 
but not quite? 

Shall it tell of a people that lazily 
culled out the things easiest to 
ravage and then burned up and 
washed away the rest; and of its 
most vital assets,' gathered but a single 
crop and then despoiled the land? A na- 
tion that could spend a billion dollars a 
year and yet was too poor to tax its peo- 
ple six cents apiece to check the de- 
struction of fifteen states! 

IN THE NAME OP ECONOMY. 

If Public Indifference continues and 
Congress fails to grant relief, these things 
will come to pass, and Posterity, our "fair 
and righteous judge" — most of said pos- 
terity having moved in the meantime to 
some other part of the country — will re- 
vile our memory, while frantic efforts are 
being made to reforest some portions of 
the Appalachian Desert and the New 
England Sahara. 

PRESENT PINCH MAY FURNISH 
CURE. 

But, after all, the case is not hopeless, 
for with the signs on every hand, that are 
being translated by our prophets, we are 
beginning to sit up and take notice, just 
a bit. The fact that we are already pay- 
ing 49 per cent, more for all our building 
materials than we did six or seven years 
ago gives a hint that Nature's Court will 
decree the penalty in time to afflict the 
present generation, unless we soon get 
busy. Whatever our opinion of Posterity, 
we certainly hate to pay the shot for our 
own carelessness. H. A. B. 



THE GENTLEMEN 

OF THE JURY 



These are the Men You 
Must Write To 



THE DUTY OF CITIZENSHIP 



" The People will Always Get Wbat They 
Really Want." — Speaker Cannon. In 
Order to Get What They Want and Need 
—They Must Tell Congress What It Is. 



U 



DO IT NOW 



This Means You, Kind Reader, and All 
Your Friends. The Address of all These 
Gentlemen is " Care of House of Repre- 
sentatives," Washington, 1). C. 



The Speaker has intimated that if the 
people show that they want this bill suf- 
ficiently, they will surely have it. The 
American Civic Association believes that 
the people do want the sources of their 
national prosperity preserved to them. 
They must, therefore, and without delay, 
indicate this fact by letters, by tele- 
grams and by personal appeal to this 
"jury." 



Joseph G. Cannon, Speaker of the House 
of Representatives. 



James A. Tawney of Minnesota, Chairman 
of Appropriations Committee. 



Members of the House Committee on 
Agriculture, to which has been referred 
the Appalachian Forest Bill: 

CHARLES F. SCOTT of Kansas, Chairman 

Gilbert N. Haugen of Iowa. 

Kittredge Haskins of Vermont. 

William Lorimer of Illinois. 

William W. Cooks of New York. 

Ralph D. Cole of Ohio. 

Ernest M. Pollard of Nebraska. 

Clarence C. Gilhams of Indiana. 

James C. McLaughlin of Michigan. 

Willis C. Hawley of Oregon 

George M. Cook of Colorado. 

John W. Weeks of Massachusetts. 

John Lamb of Virginia. 

Asbury F. Lever of South Carolina. 

Jack Beall of Texas. 

William W. Rucker of Missouri. 

Augustus O. Stanley of Kentucky. 

J. Thomas Heflin of Alabama. 

William H. Andrews of New Mexico. 



WRITE TO JTOUR OWN CONGRESSMAN 
WITHOUT FAIL. 



IS YOUR LONG DISTANCE TELEPHONE HANDY? 



"WE HAVE REACHED THE FORKS OF THE ROAD"— PRES. ROOSEVELT 

PRESERVE THE NATION'S 
HERITAGE 




APPALACHIAN FORESTS MUST BE SAVED 




THE PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE 



WE should acquire in the Southern Appa. 
lachian and White Mountain regions all the 
forest land that is possible for the use of the 
nation. These lands, because they form a 
national asset are as emphatically national 
as the rivers which they feed and which flow 
through so many states before they reach the 
ocean." 

" Shall we continue the waste and destruc- 
tion of our national resources or shall we 
conserve them? There is no other question 
of equal gravity before the Nation." 

Theodore Roosevelt 

.President 



Forester Pinchot and President Roosevelt 
Sailing Down the Mississippi 

—Collier's Weekly 



MR. PINCHOT'S TESTIMONY 



WHAT FOREST FAILURE MEANS 



When the Forests Fail, the lumber business, now the fourth greatest indus- 
try in the country, will of course disappear. Suffering among all building industries 
will immediately follow; mining will become vastly more expensive; then naturally 
the price of coal, iron and all other minerals will rise; by this the railroads will be 
directly affected and the cost of transportation and water power for lighting, manu- 
facturing and transportation will immediately increase. All goods made from pro- 
ducts of these mines will increase in price, which will hamper, not only agriculture, 
but the cost of production generally. In fact, when the forests fail, every man, 
woman and child in the United States, will feel the pinch. And through misuse the 
forests are failing rapidly. 

Gifford Pinchot, 

Forester 



"THE COUNTRY IS IN A DANGEROUS CONDITION " — PINCHOT 



THE APPALACHIAN REGIONS LOOK SMALL ON THE MAP 



SOUTHERN APPALACHIAN REGION 

NON AGRICULTURAL LAND 'N SOUTHERN APPALACHIAN MOUNTAINS 




The shaded area shows the "non-agricultural lands " among the mountains. Their forest 
covering regulates and controls all the great rivers of the South. Notice how the streams radiate 
from this water shed and flow toward the Atlantic, the Gulf, the Ohio and the Mississippi. 



HOW TO CONTROL THE RIVERS. 
Forests at Their Headwaters the Only 
Protection for Navigation and Water 
Power. 

NO FORESTS, NO WATERWAYS. 

It is an absolute principle: no forests, 
no waterways. Without forests regulat- 
ing the distribution of waters, rainfalls 
are at once carried to the sea, hurried 
sometimes, alas! across the country. 
After having devastated the neighboring 
fields, the rivers find themselves again, 
with little water and much sand; and 
with such rivers, how will you fill your 
canals? . . . The question is as clear 
as can be: Do you want to have naviga- 
ble rivers or do you prefer to have tor- 
rents that will destroy your crops and 
never bear a boat? If you prefer the 
first, then mind your forests. We can 
tell you, for we know. 

If the Mississippi is the "Father of 
Waters," the forest is the father of the 
Mississippi. 

M. JUSSERAND, 
Ambassador from France. 

THE EXPERIENCE OF FRANCE. 

If we wait until forest and soil are 
gone before beginning a sound policy of 
handling these mountains, we shall in- 
vite the bitter experience of France, 
who at infinite pains and an expenditure 
of $40,000,000 within her limited area is 
endeavoring to restore both soil and for- 
est to her mountains after a course of 



destruction such as ours at present. The 
streams of the Appalachians are of 
enormous value to the nation for water 
power and navigation. If the forests are 
removed from the mountains, this value 
will be reduced to a fraction, because the 
soil from the denuded watersheds will so 
rapidly fill reservoirs and channels that 
even the resources of the Government 
itself will be insufficient to keep them 
clear. 

JAMES WILSON, 
Secretary of Agriculture. 

UTILIZING THE WATERS. 

Our inland waters are our greatest nat- 
ural resource. The water flowing down 
our Western mountains far exceeds in 
value the fabulous wealth represented by 
all the metals and minerals lying between 
the Rockies and the Pacific. 

Today, most of this resource is wasted. 
Each year, at least 1,600,000 horse power 
runs over Federal f Government dams. 
Capitalized at three 'per cent., it repre- 
sents an investment of $1,066,000,000 now 
wholly wasted. 

Further, uncontrolled water is a curse. 
Flood damage in the United States ex- 
ceeds $100,000,000 per year. With our 
water controlled and utilized, this sum 
might be saved and a five-fold greater 
value produced. 

A plan for Federal action is essential, 
and it must infallibly include the conser- 
vation of forests upon the slopes on 
which rise important streams. 

M. O. LEIGHTON, 
Chief Hydrographer U. S. Geological 

Survey. 



THEY ARE VAST IN THEIR INFLUENCE ON TWENTY-TWO STATES 



ISN'T THIS WORTH ATTENDING TO, NOW? 



REPORT OF SENATE 
COMMITTEE 



Worthy of Attention by the 
House of Representatives 

JUST A SHORT SYNOPSIS 



Wise Public Policy — Inevitable Necessity, 
Essential to Agriculture, to Manufactur- 
ing, to Lumber Supply, to Recreation. 
A National Economy Saving Millions of 
Dollars Every Year. 



THE APPALACHIAN FOREST RESERVE 



Report of Senate Committee on Forest 
Reservations. 

Presented to Qongress April 11, 1906. 
(Report No. 2537.) 

The following argument, which shows 
the urgent need of the legislation pro- 
posed, was prepared by the Forest Ser- 
vice of the Department of Agriculture, and 
is submitted herewith as embodying the 
views of the Committee: 

First, the creation of these reserves is 
wise public Policy. 

Both the proposed reserve regions are 
chiefly natural forest land, more useful 
for the production of timber and water 
than anything else. 

Second, the acquisition of these lands 
by the government will be good business 
policy. 

Within a short term of years the Na- 
tional Forests will carry themselves. At 
the same time, their property value is 
increasing fully ten per cent, a year. 
This is in addition to their enormous in- 
direct returns to the public welfare. 

Third, the creation of these reserves is 
a necessary policy. 

Sooner or later the inevitable conse- 
quences will force the government to 
step in. The question is not merely a 
local one. The loss of the forest is fol- 
lowed by that of the soil and by recur- 
ring floods, the devastation of property, 
the obstruction of navigable rivers. Al- 
ternate high and low water periods and 
government expenditures for dredging 
and harbor improvements follow. Yet de- 
forestation is only in its first stage. 
Eventually, the stripped mountains will 
become so inimical to the public welfare 
that the government must reforest them. 

Fourth, the creation of these reserves 
is in the interest of agriculture. 

Erosion is" so rapid that within five or 
ten years there is not enough fertile soil 
to bear crops. All the land that is truly 
agricultural is now exposed by denuda- 
tion of the forests to severe floods. In 
the distant lowlands, the effect of forest 
destruction is felt in floods, which sweep 



away bridges, dams and houses, and 
spread barren sand over acres of fertile 
fields. 

Fifth, the creation of these reserves is 
important to manufactures. 

The water power of these two reserves 
is of vast importance and will be more 
so with the development of electricity. 
The present course with the forests will 
entail a severe blow and lasting detri- 
ment to the entire country. 

Sixth, in the lumber industry, the law 
of supply and demand does not guard 
the public interest. 

Ownership by the national government 
of the reserves now proposed will help to 
maintain for the future a supply of lum- 
ber trees. 

Protection from fire is practicable with- 
out great expense. Scientific forestry 
would gather an annual crop from the 
trees and conservative lumbering bring 
in a constant revenue witrout interfer- 
ing with the preservation of the forest 
cover. 

Seventh, the White Mountains and the 
Southern Appalachians are natural rec- 
reation grounds for a very large part of 
our population. 

Over 60,000,000 people are within 
twenty-four hours of the Southern Ap- 
palachians and the White Mountains have 
long held a foremost place as a summer 
resort. These regions should be guarded 
and handed down to the generations 
which follow. 

A NATIONAL RATHER THAN A 
LOCAL OR STATE QUESTION. 

The interests affected are interstate. 
The evils which the reserves will check 
fall most heavily upon distant communi- 
ties and upon the national government. 
The government puts into the building 
of levees and the improvement of rivers 
and harbors many million dollars annu- 
ally. The reserves constitute a far more 
economical expenditure for the same 
purpose. 

A state within which these areas lie 
cannot reserve thejm for the benefit of 
other states. It is impossible for states 
which suffer from conditions outside their 
own territory to remedy them by their 
own action. The benefits will be national 
and the expense should be borne by the 
Nation. 



(In accordance with the recommenda- 
tions of the report from which these ex- 
tracts are taken, the Senate unanimous- 
ly passed the bill, which was subsequent- 
ly approved by the House Committee on 
Agriculture, but was never acted upon by 
the House.) 



"Moses, in his journey toward the Prom- 
ised Land, came to the very border, only 
to perish there. Such was the fate of 
this bill in the 59th Congress." 



Why should there be further delay? If 
there is any quibble about any of the 
terms of the bill, let the Committee pro- 
pose a better one, but do it now. 



It is a pretty far-fetched objection that 
the Constitution can not provide any 
means of deliverance. 



A GREAT NATIONAL QUESTION, SAYS THE SENATE COMMITTEE 



Typical Resolutions 



The following comprehensive Resolutions, recently adopted by the 
League of Improvement Societies in Rhode Island, furnish 
suggestions for many special communications from various 
classes of citizens. Nearly every interest in the country is in 
some manner affected. 



WHEREAS, a bill for Government to acquire National Forests in the 
Southern Appalachian and White Mountain regions failed to pass the United 
States House of Representatives during the Fifty-ninth Congress, although it had 
previously passed the Senate without dissent and had been unanimously approved 
by the House Committee on Agriculture and repeatedly urged by the President and 
by scores of national, state and local organizations; and 

WHEREAS, Government primarily exists and the constitution is framed 
with the express purpose to secure united action wherever the individual powers 
of separate states would be inadequate or powerless to promote the general wel- 
fare or to protect the resources of their people ; and 

WHEREAS, the Secretary of Agriculture on December n, 1907, presented 
a report to Congress demonstrating after extensive investigation made by the 
most competent national authorities, that there exists a situation frought with the 
gravest danger to national prosperity and demanding immediate understanding 
and action by the government as well as by the States and by the people; and 

WHEREAS, facts which are readily obtainable indicate that unrestrained 
forest destruction upon these mountain sides menaces the destinies of at least 
fifteen states, directly affects the prosperity of many others; and 

WHEREAS, among the results of this forest destruction are 

Floods upon the rivers, which are already estimated to cost the nation 
$100,000,000 each year and are constantly becoming more disastrous; 

Loss of soil valued at a billion dollars a year and amounting to at least a billion 
tons which fills up and destroys storage reservoirs and navigable rivers and 
chokes harbors along nearly the entire eastern and southern coast line of the 
Country — and which will be rapidly augmented as cutting of timber goes higher on 
the mountains; 

Extinction of the nation's supply of hardwood together with the great 
industries dependent upon it; 

Increased cost of most building materials which places burdensome addi- 
tional tax upon every property owner and rent payer in the United States; 

Loss of agricultural production by the destruction of soil fertility; 

Destruction of recreation places required for the health and enjoyment of the 
people ; 

Devastation of national domain thousands of square miles of which are being' 
rendered wholly unfit for habitation or any other use; 

Failure of navigation and water power not only by the floods of springtime 
bat by the ever increasing severity of midsummer draughts which are destroying 
or discouraging navigation on scores of rivers and annihilating the possibilities of 
future water power for industries now producing nearly $500,000,000 a year; f»nd 

WHEREAS, in many other ways appalling loss. and irreparable disaster is 
being wrought upon many of the most prosperous sections of the country — some of 
these in states far removed from the sources of the trouble — and grievous burdens 
are being forced upon all the people; therefore be it 

RESOLVED, that the League of Improvement Societies in Rhode Island 
representing 27 societies and 3,500 members, most urgently petitions Congress 
to take appropriate action and respectfully requests the Senators and Representa- 
tives from Rhode Island to use their utmost endeavors to secure the passage of this 
necessary legislation without undue delay in order that the history of many former 
empires and rich domains that have been obliterated through similar causes 
may not be repeated in our own land; and be it further 

RESOLVED, that copies of these resolutions be sent to each of our senators and 
representatives and to the Honorable Speaker of the House of Representatives. 




^ 



retro 

RECEIVED 

[^ IV1AY 20 1910 *J 
^/&R 



tion of your State Legislature 



IS NOT THE EAST WORTH SAVING? 



I 



440,000,000 being spent intheWestforf^eclamation, 
15,000,000 needed inthe East for Reservation,- 



NATIONAL FORESTS —JANUARY FIRST, 1908. 
UNITED STATES, ALASKA, AND PORTO RICO. 

INDICATED BY SOLID BLAtK r> N MAP. 



n5s 



The West is MaKing aGardenof its Deserts; V 
The East is Maying a Desert of its Gardens. J 




THE GREAT RIVERS OE/VINE 
SOUTH-E ASTERN STATES , RISE IN THE 

Southern-Appalachia ns. 

"An absolute prineiple;-|^o forests, fJoP^ivers. 
"[Tie forest 15 Father of the Mississippi." 



PROPOSED - 
EASTERN" FORESTS 

INDICATED THUS 

IN WHITE MOUNTAINS, 
6 60,000 ACRES,=l030Sq.MlLES : 

In Southern Appalachians, 
5,ooo,oooAcr,e5, - 

78ooSqMiles. 

Total 883oap=3 %>PEHCENT 

OFA^ea Western I^esei^es. 



- . ' 



Why should not the resources of the East be protected ? Write to Washington and ask. 

Western States and Territories— population about 10.000,000— have 234,170 square miles National Forest 

Eastern States— population about 80,000.000— have no National Forest protection at all 



The States Must Help 

To Encourage Private Forestry and Make Tree-Growing 
Worth While — To Protect the Streams that are the Arteries 
of the Commonwealth. 



TAKE TAX FROM GROWING TIMBER 



Collier's Weekly for February 22, commenting on a bill recently introduced 
into the New York Senate, points out a very definite way in which the States 
must help the government and the people to check the menace of Forest De- 
struction. " This bill," it says, " introduced by Senator Cobb, Chairman of the 
Forest, Fish and Game Committee of the New York Senate, blazes a trail that 
the friends of forest preservation throughout the country will find it well to follow. 
The Cobb bill provides that land devoted exclusively to wood, timber, or forest 
products shall be assessed at a rate not higher than the rate of barren and unpro- 
ductive lands in the same tax district. Owners may have their lands inspected 
by foresters detailed by the Forest, Fish and Game Commissioner and secure 
advice as to the best methods of growing trees. 

This measure recognizes the fact that a really effective system of forest pro- 
tection must enlist the good-will and the active cooperation of private interests. 
* * * * The bulk of the work must be done on commercial lines. * * * * 
After all, the destroyers of the forests — the lumbermen, the wood pulp men, 
the makers of railroad ties — are human. They do not destroy for the sake of 
destruction — some of them would really like to repair their own waste. Many 
are already cooperating with the state and national forestry services, systemati- 
cally replanting their cut-over lands and treating trees as crops, to be grown as 
often as harvested. But the States penalize forethought. By taxing the growing 
trees they make it hard and often impossible for the owner to carry the crop to 
maturity. Paying out cash every year for taxes and taking nothing in for thirty 
years is calculated to chill the enthusiasm of the average business man. The 
proper time to tax trees is when they are cut. When the owner is about to realize 
on his crop the State may take such a share of the proceeds as it thinks just. 
But while the new forest is growing, restoring life to barren hillsides and protect- 
ing the sources of the streams that are the arteries of the commonwealth, it is a 
ruinous policy to force its destruction by levying fines on its existence. 

The old-fashioned methods of lumbering, under which a third of the wood 
was wasted, have been replaced by economical processes which enable almost 
everything to be utilized. The National Forest Service offers its cooperation to 
all owners of woodlands who wish to undertake scientific replanting. The chief 
obstacle in the way of a general movement in this direction is the barbarous tax- 
ing system of the States " 

THE PRACTICAL PLAN 

The American Paper and Pulp Association on February 7, 1908, adopted 
resolutions declaring that " the public should encourage the preservation of the 
forests by the owners by sharing with them the burden entailed thereby, more 
particularly in the following manner : ( i ) by reducing taxation to a minimum, so 
as to encourage conservative cutting, (2) by applying the taxes received from 
wild lands to their protection from fire and to reforestation of burned or already 
denuded districts." 



TO MEMBERS OF THE CIVIC ASSOCIATION 

Please look into your State Forest Laws and bring the subject to the atten= 

tion of your State Legislature 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 

i iimi inn urn hiii irii mil n m mil "" nil !«i 111 





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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



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Hollinger Corp. 



